Edward Dollman - surgeon or scamp 2

This follows on from the previous piece. Remember that Edward Dollman (jr) had left London in 1836.

Seymour-Place North, Euston Square

Since about 1830 ED's father had had a house at 24 Seymour-Place, Euston (roughly the site of the Fire Station opposite Old St Pancras Church). Grandfather James Heath stayed there for time, giving that as his address in a catalogue of pictures exhibited in 1833, the year before his death. I cannot be sure but I think Edward Dollman senior assigned the lease of the house to his son. Round about the time James Heath died, Edward and Harriet, the senior Dollmans, and their elder daughter Amelia (who did not marry) went to live mainly at Lewisham. It seems that Lewisham was their “home parish” by 1836 for that was where their younger daughter Camilla got married that year.

The Seymour-place house was then let. In 1835 it was the address of a young lawyer called John Hargreaves, and in 1836 of a dealer and importer of French goods, who unfortunately had become insolvent. If the rent had been intended to support ED in his travels it may have proved an unreliable source of income. A Mr Prout lived there in 1840.

The start of the slippery slope

ED could have been back in England by the middle of 1838. He was twenty-four. A gentleman of that name was entered at Guy's Hospital that year, in the sense, I am fairly sure, of training to be a doctor. This training had to be paid for by someone. But he must have dropped out.  

He married in 1839 in Berkshire. Of his and his wife's children I have only researched the one from whom I'm descended. It was not a stable household. For example in the 1851 census their two known children were in two different places, not with their parents.

In 1843 it was not ED but his wife Rosina who registered the birth of their daughter Harriet Fanny, giving his occupation as “surgeon.” Fanny was born at 8 Pickering Terrace, Bayswater, which Rosina said was her address (my emphasis). ED is seen in other records at numerous addresses, but not that one!

In 1843, and again in 1846, newspaper stories describe an Edward Dolman (sometimes one L) as a chemist or druggist at Stratford, Essex, a few miles to the north east of London. Moreover in 1845 the London Medical Directory shows him as a General Practitioner at Stratford, but the space for the nature of his qualification is blank, and in the 1846 edition he is on a list of names which had appeared the year before 

who had not then, and still have not, made any return of the nature of their qualifications, in reply to repeated applications, and who we are unable to identify in the lists of…. [recognised bodies]….our regret at being compelled to omit them….. it is from their own neglect or omission….. 

Charles W. Steel, who had married Camilla in 1836, was a “proper doctor,” near Lewisham, and may well have frowned on his brother-in-law's pretensions. 

In fact ED was bankrupt

Proceedings continued on and off for about seven years from 1841, the notices – published in the London Gazette - detailing a number of different addresses at which he had operated.  I don't know if he had been borrowing from friends but the fact is that one of the petitioning creditors in 1841 was his mother's first cousin Henry Corbould, a well known artist, whose son Francis, five years younger than ED, was then studying medicine.

Some of the notices describe ED as merchant, or merchant's clerk, but from the addresses given it must be the same person as the chemist, druggist, doctor or surgeon. 

So what happened to 24 Seymour-Place, which I think he owned? In February 1842 that property, now let to a Mrs or Mr Symons at 50 guineas per annum, was for sale by order of the mortgagee and assignee (Morning Post 19/2/1842). The lease was 85 years from 1822, and the balance of this was included in the estate of the bankrupt ED in 1843. The assignees in May 1841 having been Henry Corbould and one Thomas Burn Catherwood (Perry's Bankrupt Gazette 8 May 1841).

A puzzle here: the “Royal Blue Book,” a fashionable directory for 1844, shows Edward Dollman Esq at 13 Grafton-street, Fitzroy Square. This could mean ED or more likely his father keeping a town house. It doesn't seem to be a Dollman address for very long. It had been the home of a widow called Harriet Ladbroke Thomas; she had died in 1834. Either of the Edward Dollmans could have been renting it. In 1852 it was for sale.

Lewisham & prison

ED now turns up at Lewisham, not far from his parents. A report from the Insolvent Debtors Court shows that he had claimed that after being bankrupt he had:-

been engaged in a Chancery suit, from which he expected a considerable benefit, but had been disappointed (I don't know if that was true, at all).

His furniture had been sold in the bankruptcy, and a Major R.W. Hooper of Lewisham had bought it. Hooper seems to have kindly but unwisely allowed ED the continuing use of it. The law has always found it hard to say who owns portable property other than the person in whose hands it actually is. So the issue became whether the furniture still belonged to Major Hooper at all, or to the creditors as the insolvent was the reputed owner at the time he went to prison (Morning Post 22 June 1848). Yes indeed, for Edward Dollman, late of Lewisham, Kent, Merchant's Clerk, is in the Queen's Prison (London Gazette 23 May 1848).

Major Hooper died in 1853; but the case rumbled on. I don't understand why. A confusing catalogue entry is given in the notes at the end, and the case was again listed for hearing in Chancery Lane in 1861 (Law Intelligence in Morning Post 26 April and 4 June 1861). 

Meantime some news of ED's sister Camilla, and her husband Charles W. Steel, who was still in a medical partnership near Lewisham. A new partner was taken on, none other than ED and Camilla's second cousin F.J. Corbould, son of Henry Corbould who had petitioned for the bankruptcy.

ED's last appearance seems to be in the London Gazette of 14 February 1862:- 

notice of the settlement of the bankruptcy of Edward Dollman the younger, gentleman, of No. 7, Retreat, Lewisham, under which creditors would get 2 shillings in the pound [ten pence]. 

Although there is a reference to a deed said to have been executed by the debtor on 3 February 1862, I think he had died a few months before that. I think he is the ED whose death was registered in the Holborn district in 1861. It seems very clear that the Edward Dollman who died in late 1862 was his father, of Devon Cottage, Lewisham. A notice placed in the Morning Post gives his age, seventy-seven.

Some thoughts

Even if I get the death certificate of the ED who died at Holborn, the circumstances of the end of his life may well never be clear.

Very few of the contemporary references to ED “the Scamp” distinguish him as “the younger” and I cannot help but think that his father, who comes over as a slightly dull but respectable figure, a Land Tax Commissioner, member of the Philanthropic Society and of the Russell Institution, and so on, cannot have been happy about that. Perhaps he never gave up on his wayward son.

ED's widowed mother Harriet died at Lewisham in January 1864, and the unmarried daughter Amelia got a Grant of Administration (with will annexed). Perhaps I should try and get the papers. By the way I found no mention of anyone getting a Grant in respect of either of the Edwards.

Fanny and Ethel

Soon after this ED's daughter Fanny became pregnant and gave birth to my great-grandmother Ethel in 1865. The identity of Ethel's father is not known. When she married my great-grandfather George Weeks in 1891, someone told the Registrar that Ethel's father was Thomas Dollman deceased. That was not true.

After her divorce from George Weeks, Ethel married the half Mexican bank employee Edward Heath, who was quite closely related to her and had, moreover, previously been married to her aunt Laura Rosina Dollman.  In the Dollman family there are several examples of marriages with close relatives!

Addresses

Here are the addresses / places I have found associated with ED, mainly in the various newspaper and bankruptcy reports, after his return from Australia:- 

Littlewick Green, Berkshire. 24 Seymour-place North, Euston, London. Church-court, Clement's Lane, London. Baldwin's Court, Cloak Lane, London. 32 Great St. Helen's, London. 13 Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square, London [him or his father, c.1844]. High Street, Stratford, Essex. Horn Street, Reading, Berkshire. 7 Retreat, Lewisham, Kent.

Sources - England

Regarding when ED was back in England, we have the usual sources:- newspapers (via British Newspaper Archive); the London Gazette; Archive.org, Hathitrust, or simply Google books, census records, and BMDs.

The name “Dollman, Edward” is one of a list of Gentlemen entered at Guy's Hospital for the year 1838 (Guy's Hospital Reports, Second Series, Vol. VIII (1853)).

The National Archives online catalogue is useful in lots of ways. As regards London houses, it includes the Sun Life insurance records. 

Re Hooper v Dollman:- PRO C 15/300/H263. Cause number: 1856 H263. Short title: In the matter of the estate of Richard Wheelen [read Wheeler] Hooper late of Lewisham, Kent, a Major in Her Majesty's army deceased: Hooper v Dollman. Documents: Administration summons. Plaintiffs: Richard Wheeler Hooper [but he was dead]. Defendants: Francis Dollman [this is odd] Provincial solicitor employed in Herefordshire [ED's cousin Francis 1824-1892 was a solicitor but ??this means the Hooper family lawyer?]...Details have been added from C32/154, which also gives information about further process…. 1856… National Archives, Kew. [C32/154, from Chancery Cause Books, 1856, is not summarised in the online catalogue and has not been digitised].

Thomas Burn Catherwood had been a clerk in the supply and accounting branch of the army medical department. I saw a detailed paper on him (“Medical History,” vol. 20, 1976) by Kate Crowe, a Wellcome Research Fellow. It may just be coincidence, but Mr Catherwood had experience of detecting and exposing fraud.

Thank you

I have had useful information from J.J.Heath-Caldwell, Emma Easterbrook, Guy Dollman, and my cousin Yvonne Douglas-Jones - in various forms (website, email, paper). Thanks to all of you. Some years ago Guy sent me copies of some pages from a handwritten Dollman family notebook, which I think had been compiled before the end of the nineteenth century. This says very little about ED, but gives him the nickname “Scamp.”

It is difficult to be always sure who is meant in any reference to “Edward Dollman” in the period covered. Another Edward Dollman or Dolman, a lawyer, is fairly easy to differentiate, and in any event he died in about 1841. There was a contemporary Edward Francis Dollman, a bootmaker, who seems to have led a respectable life. Also there was Edwin Dollman, who really was a doctor, at Limehouse. In 1854, aged just 38, he killed himself by jumping from a second floor window during insanity brought on by fever (it was said) (Gents Magazine, 1854); some records give him as Edward, but he was Edwin.

Much of the difficulty is to sort out ED from his father. In the end I have concluded that on balance all the bad stuff relates to the “Scamp.” But it's just hunch!

This is just what I have found so far. There is sure to be more.

Edward Beaumont April 2020 / November 2020

“One new fact can change everything.”

Edward Dollman - surgeon or scamp 1

 I don't normally digress into non-Beaumont things, but this chap seems worth it. I wrote this up in March and April 2020. 

Edward Dollman 1814-1861 

Voyage of the Whaler Harriet 1836-1837 and later career in London

Before I started this I knew that I am descended from Edward Dollman. I knew very little of him except that he had been described as a surgeon, and that one of his Dollman relatives in an old family notebook had nicknamed him “the Scamp.” Then I made a chance discovery that Edward Dollman was the name of the doctor on a whaling ship which had been wrecked in the Pacific Ocean in 1837, and that he and some others from the ship had made it to Australia at the end of that year.

So I started digging a bit more!

A London childhood

ED was born in late 1814 in Doughty Street, where his parents then lived, and was christened at St.Pancras.

ED's father – whose name was the same  – seems somewhat a gentleman of leisure.  His father Francis Dollman, who was still alive in 1834, had been a “hatter” in St. James's Street, Westminster, and the hat business had been taken on by a cousin and may indeed have come to an end before ED was grown up. 

ED was 19 or 20 in 1834 when his maternal grandfather James Heath died. James Heath was well known in his time as an engraver of historical portraits. ED senior had married his daughter Harriet in 1811.

Thus both sides of the family were used to serving wealthy members of London society, and I would tend to describe them as highly creative and socially aspirational - but no doubt saddled with mortgages and the need to keep up appearances.

To the other side of the world

The Harriet left London Docks on 1 June 1836 under the command of a man named Christie, whose teenage son was also on board. Somewhere near the Cape of Good Hope Captain Christie suffered several broken ribs when he fell in rough weather. Information on the voyage all comes from a “Narrative” by Charles Sparshatt, an Able Seaman in the crew.

Our Doctor, Mr. Dollman, a very clever young man in his profession, attended him [Captain Christie] with the greatest care.

But the Captain did not comply with “doctors orders,” and his condition worsened. Having rounded the southern end of New Holland [Australia], the Harriet made her way to the Bay of Islands [near the north end of North Island, New Zealand], where in November 1836 Captain Christie handed over his command to a Mr Ridout.

Captain Christie was taken ashore. Mr Dollman left the ship to look after him.

The ship then cruised between Australia and New Zealand looking for whales, with very indifferent success, and returned to the Bay of Islands in May 1837 where the crew learned that Captain Christie had died shortly after they had left. Some of the men went ashore to pay their respects at his grave.

Mr Ridout must have kept an Account Book with him all through the events that followed, and it is now in the National Maritime Museum Archives. It shows that board and lodging costs for Dr Dollman were paid on May 12 1837, and about that time the Doctor rejoined the Harriet, which set sail again looking for whales.

Dr Dollman soon had a new patient, for Able Seaman Sparshatt dislocated his knee. When the Doctor came to see it he … tried to put it in its place by main strength, but could not succeed for two or three days; at the expiration of this time it slipped in of its own accord, but left me of course very lame…. That sounds painful.

Then on 16 July, in calm weather but with an ocean swell and on a falling tide, the Harriet struck a reef of coral rocks [the Providence Reef] off the Fejee [Fiji] Islands, and became hopelessly stuck and damaged. All of the crew save one (the carpenter, who was fatally injured) got into the boats with what they could save, and eventually made their way some hundreds of miles to Wallis's Island [Wallis & Futuna Islands], where they seem to have become scattered into several groups. 

Without going into detail about their adventures, I will simply say that not all of the natives were friendly, and that Charles Sparshatt did not detail what happened to the Doctor.

To Sydney

But from other sources, it is clear that after some weeks a group of the Harriet's crew came away from Wallis's Island on a ship called the Riata [or Riatea, or Raitea], of Otaheite [Tahiti], and in due course they arrived at Port Jackson [Sydney]. Their names being given as:-

“Thomas Ridout, master; James Larkin, mate; J. Murphy, Third Mate; Edward Dollman, surgeon; William McCletchie; William Williams; J. Christie; J. Smith; two boys; William Wright, cook” (Sydney Herald 14 Dec. 1837 and other NSW newspapers)….  

(That is the only time in the accounts of this voyage, that I have seen ED's first name given).

As for Charles Sparshatt, eventually he and six others were taken on board a Sydney whaler, were left at Port Jackson in August 1838, and arrived back in London in February 1839. Sparshatt says that whilst he was at Sydney “I saw a man belonging to a vessel that had brought part of the Harriet's crew there, who had left Wallis's Island in the boats, and who told me that the Captain and a part of them had gone to England….”

It appears that Edward Dollman was one of those, as we soon find him back in London.

To be continued.

Sources for the voyage

One of the crew, an Able Seaman, was a certain Charles Sparshatt of Stoke Newington. When he got back to London in 1839 he wrote a “Narrative” of the voyage for his “dear little brother” - advising him to live a peaceable and useful life, put your trust in God, respect and obey your parents, never depart from truth, be honest, sober, industrious, and learn some trade. This was published by the Philanthropic Society (of which several of the senior Dollmans had been members, by the way).

Another source is the ship's own papers, now in the National Maritime Museum archives as MSS/85/020. They haven't been catalogued, and I haven't seen them. I understand there are several boxes of papers. One of the things I'd like to know is whether they detail the owners of the ship (i.e. who hoped to share the profits of the voyage) and whether that has any bearing on the ship's name being that of Mrs Dollman.  A copy of a page was sent to me by Harriet Braine, Archives Assistant; I'd like to thank her, she photographed it on her phone, as the usual equipment is shut down due to the coronavirus!

The newspapers printed in Sydney, New South Wales, are now available in full text through Australia's amazing “Trove” search facility.

The story of the Harriet's voyage is not covered in the English papers. The incident is mentioned briefly in May 1838 saying that all the crew were saved except the carpenter. We can take that as confirming that some of the men were back home by that time.

The ship was a total loss. Somebody / some people took a hit! I had a look in several volumes of Lloyds Register without seeing anything I could be sure was the right vessel, though there were several of the name Harriet. A more thorough search might pay off. Incidentally another whaler called Harriet had been wrecked on the coast of New Zealand a couple of years earlier, so care is needed eg in reading source material.

A Manuscript - the Eland Feud and the Knights of Rhodes!

Dark evenings with no electric light called for scary stories to be told. The main versions I know of this one are

1. Verse - a ballad

(Printed in 1775 in John Watson's History & Antiquities of Halifax - the earliest text of it that I am directly aware of. This runs to 124 stanzas of four lines each. There is also a version which is a few stanzas shorter).

The lady cry'd, and shriek'd withal, 

When as from her they led 

Her dearest knight into the hall, 

And there cut off his head.

2. Prose - Printed in 1708 with the heading "Revenge upon Revenge." 

Revenge upon Revenge 

AN Historical NARRATIVE 

OF THE 

Tragical Practices OF Sir JOHN ELAND of Eland 

High Sheriff of the County of YORK 

Committed upon the Persons of Sir Robert 

Beamont and his Alliances in the Reign of 

Edward the Third King of England &c 

etc etc

(In "Hallifax and its Gibbet-Law",  [first] printed for William Bently, 1708) Unfortunately in the printed edition there is no clue about where that text came from.

3. Prose - headed "The Discourse of the Slaughter of Eland, Beaumont, Lockwood, Quarmby etc (Published in various places / versions). In our archive is a manuscript of the "Discourse" version written on foolscap and dated 1810........

The introductory page (NB number of years from the
murders is very wrong) (Box 1/212)

..... which records that it is copied from something written in 1688.  I don't recognise the handwriting.

Where does this story come from?

In short, these texts have been copied and copied and copied.  Moreover, until J.M.Kaye published a detailed account of it in the YAJ in 1979, all previous published comment on it seems to have assumed or thought that it was all true or at least based on truth.

The story is in several parts

1. The haughtiness of Sir John Eland, and the murder by him and his henchmen of Quarmby of Quarmby, Lockwood of Lockwood, and Sir Robert Beaumont of Crosland.

2. How Sir Robert's eldest son Adam and young Quarmby and young Lockwood spent the next few years and how they killed Sir John in revenge.

3. How Adam and his companions lived as outlaws in Lancashire and how they returned and killed Sir John's son and grandson. 

4. What happened after this. In some versions how Quarmby and Lockwood met their ends. How Adam escaped to France and became a Knight of Rhodes serving there and/or in Hungary. 

The Facts

Fact - Sir Robert Beaumont of Crosland was not murdered, at least there is no evidence of that. It is likely that he died about 1330. The story of his murder must be fiction.

Fact - Sir Robert had several sons. They included Adam, who was not the eldest. Adam and his eldest brother John were engaged in criminal activities.

Fact - Sir John Eland was killed in 1350 by an Adam Beaumont (likely to be Sir Robert's son) and his associates. The next year another John Eland was murdered also perhaps by the same gang.

Fact - Adam disappears from the records. It seems he was not brought to justice. The story of his serving in Rhodes or Hungary sounds like fiction.

Our MS

The 1810 Discourse copy in this archive was in the ownership of George Beaumont in the 1890s, for it is kept in an envelope which was sent as a registered letter to him at East Bridgford in 1897, along with a letter from William Cochrane, Aspley Hall, Nottingham, dated January 26, '97, returning the "Old Manuscript you so kindly lent me some weeks since."

I don't know who wrote it out, and I am not sure even if it is all in the same handwriting.

This MS may well have been passed down to George from Rev Thomas Beaumont (d.1835) who knew RH Beaumont of Whitley. George Beaumont the merchant (1757-1807) actually lived at Crosland Hall (not the old Hall site but quite close by), but he died in 1807 and R.H. Beaumont in 1810. Nevertheless George's brother Walter (who was with him at Crosland) lived till 1841, and in fact went to live at East Bridgford later in his life.

Knights of Rhodes

Nobody except me seems to have pointed this out! Even today people would understand that a "knight of the roads" is something rather like a highwayman, which is what Adam's older brother John (not mentioned in the ballad) more or less was.

The Discourse text in this archive actually says "Roads" rather than "Rhodes."

The last page of the MS (Box 1/212)

........... "and afterwards Adam Beaumont had his dwelling sometimes at the Roads and sometimes at Hungary and here he ended his life." He ended his life hungry? He is supposed to have written a letter to a friend, Jenkyns Dyson or Dixon, at "the Hole House," Almondbury - so did anyone ever see this letter? (I think its a real place - Hoyle House maybe).

The "Revenge" version includes this passage which I am fairly sure holds foreigners and a culture of Catholic crusades, in high contempt:-

...... after a few Nights and Days he [Adam] was safely Landed within the Realm of France; And being now upon a Shore, and within a Kingdom that usually Rates Honour at its utmost Value, and in that grand Stage of Remark, this Young Gentleman gave such visible Testimonies of his Noble Extract, and true Personal Valour, that he had not long remained in those Parts, till Men of Worth and Grandeur had made Observations upon his Brave and Generous Conduct; and that first brought him into the Acquaintance, and afterwards into the Service, of the Knights of Rhodes, to Fight under them in no mean Command, in Defence of the Christian Faith within the Kingdom of Hungary, which was then very Powerfully Invaded with a vast Army of Turkish Infidels. In this Great and Stupendous Adventure, he gave most large Proofs of his almost invincible Strength, and most Undaunted Courage. In these Dangerous Wars and Prodigious Battles it was, that our English Hero arrived to great Fame and Dignity amongst those Celebrated Champions of our Holy Faith; and amongst whom some have not been afraid to say, that the Name of Beaumont is to be found Registered amongst the Knights of Rhodes.

See E. Cobham Brewer, The Reader's Handbook of Allusions (nineteenth century)... Knight of the Roads: a foot-pad or highwayman; so termed by a pun on the military order entitled "The Knights of Rhodes." A Hungarian: one half-starved.

Conclusions

J.M. Kaye's well-researched article shows clearly that the Beaumont brothers (Sir Robert's sons, perhaps especially John and Adam) were criminally associated with people called Lockwood, amongst others.

Anyone interested should not be distracted by the old publications or local websites, but should read Kaye in YAJ vol. 51 (1979) pp. 61-79. His conclusion is that the ballad was composed as a warning to the Yorkshire gentry of the 1530s about their criminal practices.  

In this Archive, in the Eland Feud file which I found in my uncle's desk after his death in 1998, are some letters from John Kaye in the 1970s before his research found a publisher.

EMB

21 November 2020

The RHB 1796 Family Tree (mid and late thirteenth century information)

 R.H. Beaumont's sources of information included 

the deeds and documents in his own house, Whitley Hall (many of which are now in West Yorkshire Archives, ref DD/WB)

the documents seen by Roger Dodsworth in the seventeenth century, RHB had had access to Dodsworth's notes, at Oxford.

Part of a page from the RHB 1796 Family Tree Box 1/154 ff in this archive.
1280William is at the centre bottom, the down arrow leads to 1310Robert on another sheet.
The sheets of paper are much larger than my A4 scanner!

(A word about this family tree. R.H.Beaumont wrote it out and sent it to his distant cousin Revd Thomas Beaumont. From Thomas this has come down to me. It is on several sheets and contains facts as late as 1796 but no later).

1250William

William may be the second or third of the name since the "first Yorkshire Beaumont" and I doubt if we will ever know much more than we know now. It appears that he had died before about 1294, since a document date in that year his widow Elizabeth released to the chief lord Henry de Lacy her claim in land etc at Huddersfield. Dodsworth saw this document in Mr Hanson's collections (see YAJ 7 274). I don't know what family Elizabeth came from but it is quite likely that she was a Foss, or Fossato, the family that owned [South] Crosland in the mid thirteenth century. Right now I am guessing her father was the Richard de Fossato to whom John de Lacy earl of Lincoln had granted Crosland in the 1230s, that Hugh de Foss was her brother, and that it was Hugh's death that brought Crosland to the Beaumonts, perhaps around 1290.

Apparently William had four sons, the relationship between two of them and their father being set out in a charter dated 1303.

1281Richard

Richard may have been the eldest son. RHB wrote: Richard de Bellomont, Knight, held lands in Hodresfeld by grant of John son of Fulco de Batonia [NB, source for this likely to be WBD/VIII/2]. 

RHB wrote: Cecilia Haget late wife of Sir William [blank] appointed Hen. Haget her attorney to deliver possession of all her land &c. in SuthKirkby to Ric. de Bellomonte. Dated at York 1288. [NB, source for this not identified] [13/8/21. Dodsworth MS 155 fo.148 seems to be the source]

RHB wrote: And Isabel formerly wife of Ralph de Warkisworth gave to Ric. de Bellomonte & to whom &c [he might assign] all the lands which she had by grant of Cecilia her mother in SuthKirkby cum servitiis liberorum etc cum omnibus bondis et sequelis suis ad dictam terram pertin..[with the service of all free men and with the bonded men and followers appertaining to the said land] .. for a sum of money & paying one pair of white gloves and a penny.... at Easter to Adam Beston. Witnesses Sir John de Heton Knt., Thomas his son, John son of Jordan of the same, &c. &c. [NB, source for this not identified][13/8/21. Dodsworth MS 155 fo.148 seems to be the source]

RHB wrote: Richard married Annabella da. of [blank]. And to her, William, brother & heir of Sir Richard, quit-claimed all right in one mess. & 101 acres in Hudd. held of Sir Fulco de Batonia and Sir John his son, dated 26 Edw.I (1298) on St.Barnabas [NB, source for this is likely to be the deed noted as XX.125 at YAJ 7 p.275, a copy of which Dodsworth saw in a book of Sir John Byron's]. She was living 31st Edw.I (1303) and married secondly [John] de Bosco. 

It is evident that Richard had no son, since his brother William was his heir. The c.1873 printed family tree is incorrectly drawn.

1280William

William seems to have been something of a military man, or one who went into the military as an exit route out of some trouble. 

20 June 1294. Westminster. Order to Hugh de Cressingham, after taking security from William Beaumund for rendering to the king his goods, taken into the king's hands for his flight, or the price thereof, at the Exchequer of Michaelmas next, according to the valuation made before the said Hugh and his fellows, justices in eyre in the Co. of York, to deliver the said goods to him: Cal. Fine Rolls, 1272-1307, No. 339. …. Then:- Westminster 30 Sept. 1294 to the sheriff of York… order to deliver to William Beaumund his goods and chattels etc [much as before]… Hugh de Cressingham having signified to the king that they are not in his hands but those of the sheriff, and “the king wishes to show favour to William, who is setting out in his service for Gascony” (Cal. Close R. 1288-96 p.370)…….

So he may well be the William de Beaumont who was present at the siege of Caelaverock in 1300, a variant of the coat of arms which was long afterwards used by the family being entered up in the "Galloway Roll." This is a list of about 260 knights headed by the King and William's name is next after William de Rythir or Ryther and William de Beston who were both fellow Yorkshiremen with whom or whose families the Yorkshire Beaumonts had dealings (I think). I believe the manuscript is M14bis, pp. 376-90, College of Arms, London.

This is the image of the shield as described in the 1300 Roll (Galloway). I got this from http://perso.numericable.fr/briantimms1/rolls/gallowayGA2.htm. The odd thing is why are the crescents in the label rather than scattered around the lion. Now is not a place to discuss the meaning of labels in heraldry. Personally I think that whoever drew this got it wrong - the crescents would not all be jammed up in the label in that way, surely? William's younger son in 1319 was using a seal with lion rampant (Yorks Deeds iii p.32).

There are numerous references available to William as a party to deeds concerning Crosland etc. including a charter dated 1303 which may well be the one that survives as WBD/I/1 but the catalogue entry there gives less detail than RHB did in the 1796 Family Tree. RHB wrote:- William de Bellomonte granted to Robert his son all his Lands & Ten[ement]s, with Mess[uages], Edifices, rents, Meadows, Woods, Mills in which he had or in any manner cd. have had by reason of inheritance after ye Decease of Will. de Bellomonte his Father or Sir Ric'd. de Bellomonte his brother in Hodresfeld, Crosland Fosse, North Crosland, Meltham and South Kirkby - Paying to him during life 20 marcs Sterling. Dated Dies Dominica px post Inventionem St.Crucis 31 Edw.I. [Sunday next after feast of Holy Cross - May].

I have not studied the originals of these charters - yet my firm impression is that one such as this fits a pattern that we see right through to the seventeenth century or even later:- eldest son gets married, father settles main family property on son and prospective grandchildren, but reserves right to live there for his lifetime, and indeed does stay there. Therefore when father makes his will, the main property may not be mentioned (as father doesn't own it) and the only sons mentioned are the younger ones (because eldest son has already had what is due to him).

RHB's 1796 family tree says that William was still alive and holding Crosland in 1316 (see him in the previous piece as Willelmus Dobernount). William died in about 1323 succeeded by his son Robert. RHB seems not to have known about Robert's younger brother William, which is odd.

1310Robert 

Much more needs to be thought and said about Robert, who lived until about 1330 only. Fantastic fictions have been written about him being murdered in 1348 (The "Eland Feud") and about his father-in-law being Edward of Crossland. The truth may be just as interesting.

 1282John

The third brother was perhaps the John who was at Lepton in 1297 (Lay Subsidy Roll). He may perhaps be identified in another record where he, and Agnes his wife, were the subject of a Papal Mandate legitimating their marriage and children after it was found that they were too closely related by blood to have married lawfully. That was in 1288. The record suggests the people concerned were resident somewhere in the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York. (Regesta 44: 1288-1290, in Calendar of Papal Registers Relating To Great Britain and Ireland: Volume 1, 1198-1304, ed. W H Bliss (London, 1893), pp. 491-511). 

1284Adam

Of a fourth supposed brother, Adam, very little is known but it is interesting that there was an Adam of Crosland a generation earlier.  There is a deed (WBD/II/2) dated 1295 the record of which is that 1310Robert (then a very young man) did not have a seal of his own, so he used one belonging to a certain Adam of Crosland, who must presumably have been a relative, such as an uncle.

....................

(I have considered the information printed at YAJ vol. 8 pp.502-3 where what was suggested is similar but not identical). 

Unfortunately a lot of what is on the internet is wrong. Please don't think I claim to get everything right but it is not my mission to laboriously try to correct errors each time I see them. The fact is that Beaumont is not a rare surname. It is no good relying just on E.T. Beaumont's book or those books or online sources which have copied it directly or indirectly. You have to get into some primary sources (or as near as you can) and think about context such as locations, chronology, feudal relationships, county connections, and so on. And then as I often say - one new fact can change everything!

EMB

16 November 2020

The Yorkshire Beaumonts in some Medieval Surveys

1. The Book of Fees (c.1242)

(Book of Fees p.1103, Testa de Nevill p.365).

The list of feudal tenants of the earl of Lincoln (holder of Pontefract) includes "W. de BelloMonte tenet octavum partam unius militus" (holds the 8th part of a knight['s fee]". This was at Huddersfield, I am fairly confident.

2. The Hundred Rolls (c.1274)

(Agbrigg wapentake - pp.132-133 in Rotuli Hundredorum (1812), Volume 1).

(Huddersfield, Whitley, Kirkheaton, Almondbury, Crosland, Lepton were in Agbrigg wapentake).

Here Almondbury and Crosland Foss are mentioned somewhat generally. Hugh de Foss or Fossato is mentioned in context of Crosland, in a story involving a robber being caught and held at Hugh's house.

Nobody called Beaumont, however spelled, is mentioned.

It has long been understood that one of the thirteenth century Beaumonts must have married the Foss / Fossato heiress. One way or another William Beaumont who is found between about 1280 and 1320 seems to have inherited Crosland. 

3. Kirkby's Inquest (1284-1285)

(Kirkby's Inquest - the part for Yorkshire, which omits Agbrigg entirely - is printed in the Surtees Society volume 49, for 1866 from pages 1-186. Also in Feudal Aids, volume 6 (HMSO, 1920), from pages 1-105). The Surtees copy has extensive footnotes, this may explain why it takes up extra pages.

On a quick look I saw no references in the Yorkshire part of this survey to people called Beaumont (however spelled).

4. The Lay Subsidy Roll (1297)

(YAS Record Series volume 16, for 1894 where Agbrigg is given from page 89).

This was a tax on personal property so does not tell us about land tenure.

At Lepton amongst a number of people - John de Beumont and Agnes de Lasceles, with the value of their goods (livestock). It is a joint entry somewhat suggesting that they were joint holders, rather than husband & wife.

There is a list of names for Almondbury, not including any Beaumonts. Crosland is not mentioned. There is a list of names at Whitley. Likewise Huddersfield, Quarmby, Meltham and elsewhere. 

5. Survey of Knights Fees in Yorkshire (thought to be c.1302)

(Surtees Society volume, as above, pages 189-275 - Agbrigg at pages 228-229) (also in Feudal Aids vol.6 pp.129-130)

Several places in Agbrigg wapentake are mentioned at pages 228-229 but not including Crosland or Almondbury, and not including anyone called Beaumont - however spelled. 

Whitley is listed simply as held by the earl of Lincoln per tenentes j. car. terrae, unde xviii car. faciunt feod. [held as one carucate of land where 18 carucates make a knights fee].

6. Nomina Villarum, 1316

(The Surtees Society volume mentioned above prints the Yorkshire part of this at pp.302-367. Agbrigg is mentioned at pp. 351-2. The same (not checked line by line) is in Feudal Aids volume 6, where Agbrigg is at page 193).

Here the holder of "Crosseland" is "Willelmus Dobernount" - which looks like a corrupt version of "de Beaumont."  This is what RHB appears to have thought, and I agree, except that from what he wrote in the 1796 Pedigree it would appear that RHB thought this was from Kirkby's Inquest. 

The holder at Whitley in the Nomina Villarum is William son of William - a common enough sort of name but in this sort of context and date, a name found also at Emley.

Several other places are mentioned just with the name of the chief lord eg [Thomas] earl of Lancaster. He was the lord of Pontefract Castle between the death of Henry de Lacy earl of Lincoln in 1311, and himself being executed in 1322.

...........................

In the next piece I am planning to show the Beaumont genealogy of this period, as R H Beaumont worked it out in the late eighteenth century, and to try to identify some of the sources he must have used. 

Please check all references. I think all of the books can be found freely online. Please cite from there, not from here.

(I understand the Nomina Villarum was printed in 1834 in one of the volumes of the Parliamentary Writs, by the Record Commission, and edited by Sir Francis Palgrave. The original source may be BL Harl. MS. 6281). 

EMB 16 November 2020

A Verse Suitable for 5 November!!

A verse entitled "Guy Fawkes" written out by George Beaumont and dated 1843

(Part of Box 1/14 of this archive)

I sing a doleful tragedy, Guy Fawkes the prince of sinister;
Who once blew up the House of Lords, the king and all his ministers; 

That is, he would have blown ‘em up, and they’d have all been cindered;
(Or seriously scorched at least) if he had not been hindered.
Bow, wow, wow, tolderidy-ido, Bow, wow, wow.


Straightway he came from Lambeth Side, and wished the State was undone;
And passing over Vauxhall Bridge came that way into London;
That is, he would have come that way to perpetrate his guilt, Sir;
But the river was too wide to cross and the bridge it wasn’t built, Sir.
Bow, wow, wow……


Then to th’ appointed place he came, when all was wrapped in night, Sir;
Resolved to fire the powder train with portable gas light, Sir;
That is he would have brought the gas within the walls he rented;
And fired the powder with it, but it wasn’t yet invented.
Bow, wow, wow……


Now James you know (King James I mean) was always thought a sly fox;
So he bid ‘em search th’ aforesaid vault, and there they found poor Guy Fawkes;
Who would have blown ‘em up, of that there’s little doubt, Sir;
For they never would have found him in if they hadn’t found him out, Sir.
Bow, wow, wow…..


Thus having caught him in the fact of ?compassing? the Crown’s end;
Away they sent to Bow Street for that famed old runner Townshend;
That is, they would have sent for him, as ?fear he was no starter at;
But Townshend wasn’t living then, he waren’t a-born till arter that.
Bow, wow, wow….


So as he was not yet alive, they nothing knew about him;
And therefore did the best they could, that is, they did without him;
They quickly hung poor Guy aloft, the gallows held him high, Sir;
But though it saved the government, t’ was gallows hard for Guy, Sir.
Bow, wow, wow…….


Now let us sing Long Live the Queen and bless her Royal son, Sir;
That is, if she have one to bless – if not, there’s no harm done, Sir;
And never may such a blowing-up again blow down the Government;
As that time would have come to pass had there been no discoverment.
Bow, wow, wow…….. 

.

(For something very similar; see the plays of Richard Brinsley Peake, c.1834,Volume 2, p.21 of a piece called The Meltonians). The last verse of that version goes:-

That Mr Fawkes was ill-advised, there cannot be a doubt, sir,

For if he'd left them to themselves, his wish might come about, sir;

That is, if he'd gone in the House, and listened to the pother,

He'd soon have seen the Members try - to blow up one another!

No comment!

EMB

5 November 2020